In its continuing quest to make this government shutdown as painful as possible, the Obama administration has now targeted the nation’s veterans. And, yes, you’d be right in thinking these people have no shame.

Now even on its best days, the Veterans Administration is one of those agencies with a reputation for perpetual backlogs in processing disability claims and getting services to returning vets desperately in need of them.

This week Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki told the House Committee on Veterans Affairs that if the partial government shutdown continues into late October, 3.8 million vets will not receive their November disability compensation checks. And he acknowledged that the VA’s effort to reduce the backlog of disability claims pending for longer than 125 days has been halted.

So, yes, a dysfunctional agency will become more dysfunctional with claims processing slowed to an average of 1,400 a day since Oct. 1. Now isn’t that the day Obamacare went into effect?

No irony there: Assuming the government software cooperated (a very big assumption as it turns out), Obamacare applicants were on target for immediate sign-ups, but veterans who have served their nation and suffered a disabling injury in the process, well, they can just wait to have their claims processed until those mean old Republicans get their act together in the House.

Part of the problem has been simply a lack of information from the White House and from the VA — oh, there’s a shocker! The president implied in some of his remarks that counseling services for PTSD would be impacted, yet actual health services are fully funded. Even Congress can’t seem to get any straight talk about what’s up and running and what’s not.

The House has passed a bill to fund all veterans benefits and pensions in the event of a prolonged shutdown, but the White House objects to a piecemeal approach. Because, of course, that would inflict less pain on real people — and the Obama administration can’t have that happen.